A Night At Joey's
by Manchester
Summary: The bartender was becoming really nervous about those two people, the only ones in the scuzzy bar just before midnight…
1. Chapter 1

"Look, will you just get the fuck outta here?"

The one-eyed guy in his chair didn't react the slightest, continuing to instead stare ahead over the dozen empty whiskey glasses on the table and not paying any attention whatsoever to the large and very hairy man in his grubby outfit of greasy jeans and a stained t-shirt leaning over the dingy table, who'd just rasped that demand. No, it was the woman seated next to him, who'd been worriedly regarding her companion for the last half-hour, that lifted her brunette head to glare with absolute fury at the owner and bartender of the run-down saloon named after himself that these people were currently occupying, with that pair being the only customers in the whole bar.

Joey had thought he'd seen dangerous people before in his life, but that lady had just shifted into a truly threatening air of what could only be dubbed as 'serious pucker factor', which was only heightened by her icy snarl of, "Yer really throwin' us outta this dump? Ya an' what fuckin' army?"

Taking an unexpected step back, Joey gulped, and then he hastily rallied, to growl, "Lissen, I'm doin' the both of you a favor! This place is the hangout for the worse biker gang in the state! They always come here 'round midnight, and they don't like at ALL strangers in their territory! I'm safe, but the last time they caught a guy in here they didn't know, they punched him out, took him outside into the parking lot, and tossed him into the air to see if how he'd come down, on his front or back. He landed on his back, which meant when they wrapped a chain around his ankles and dragged him behind a bike at full speed down the road for a coupla hunnert yards, he just lost alla his butt instead of his face! Now, wilya beat it?"

"Bless me, how jolly delightful! They sound just like perfectly fine fellows to share a jovial quaff amongst us!" was then happily spoken in an atrocious English accent from the guy at the table, who turned to beam at the dumbfounded owner.

"Fer Chrissakes, will ya stop imitatin' Giles? Dammit, Xander, ya always- Oh, fuck." The woman had stopped short in her angry scolding, to trail off into a quieter comment, for no obvious reason the other two men could recognize. At least, until a few moments later, the entire bar began to softly tremble, followed by the rumble through the air of at least a dozen overbuilt motorcycle engines.

Joey rapidly scuttled behind the bar counter, calling out when he got there, "You're on your own. I don't see nothin', I don't hear nothin', I don't say nothin', and I'll live a helluva lot longer than you." The bartender folded his tattooed arms across his burly chest, looked up at the ceiling, and did his best to ignore the building's shaking as multiple horsepower pulled into the parking lot in front.

Grinning maniacally, Xander Harris leaned forward across the bar table to shout above the thunderous noise into Faith Lehane's irritated face, "I really like that guy! He'll be on my Christmas fruitcake list this year, for sure!"

Faith just glared back.

Outside, the noise abruptly cut off, all at once, leaving behind the same kind of sinister silence a mob creates when they hold their breath during that moment just before the guillotine blade drops.

Joey closed his eyes.

Xander winked at Faith.

Faith gave Xander the finger.

CRASH!

The front door of the bar was kicked open, slamming against the wall, to be held there by the entrance of numerous huge specimens of biker troglodytes squeezing themselves into the saloon, accompanied by the scrapings of their leather outfits with the attached chains, belts, knife sheaths, and iPod holders making menacing sounds as these were dragged past the edges of the doorway.

Stalking towards the bar counter, the biker gang was wearing their club name and colors on the backs of their jackets, showing to the entire world that every one of them was proud to call themselves a RAPED RHINO RIDER (you really don't want to know about the design below the name), until simultaneously, all of them halted in their tracks, their heads swiveling to look at the table in the corner where a smokin' mama was holding her hand over her eyes, and a guy with an eyepatch was cheerfully waving his right arm at them while sticking his first two left fingers in his mouth to whistle shrilly for their attention.


	2. Chapter 2

Lenny 'Skullripper' Bates, the seven-foot/four-hundred-pound/multiple-homicides leader of the pack, slowly turned his massive head to dourly regard Joey behind the bar, as that man now started to babble in sheer panic, "Look, big guy, they wouldn't leave and I don't-"

"Who?" crawled past Bates' lips and fled for its very existence.

"Oh," gulped Joey. "Right. Nobody here but us- Nobody at all, I mean- I'll be at the end of the bar cleaning off the blood on the glasses from last night." The bartender scurried along to take up his position there, and got busy at his job of making sure he managed to achieve the average life expectancy of 75.6 years for males in the United States, as presented by the CIA World Factbook 2009. Starting with ignoring whatever happened back there at the table.

Satisfied, Bates swaggered over, the floorboards creaking in agony during his passage, and he stopped at the edge of the corner table, his dead eyes examining tonight's candidates for slaughter and gangrape, with the specific course of events depending solely on how Bates decided his biker buddies would most find entertaining for the next couple of hours. Starting to take a breath to inform his victims that they were truly fucked, the boss of the outlaw motorcycle club was suddenly interrupted.

The guy with the eyepatch, a big grin on his face that meant this guy had absolutely no idea how deep in the shit he really was, now leapt out of his chair, to stand before Bates and wave his right hand in front of the enormous man's face, thumb and pinkie curled in with the other three fingers extended straight up, with that idiot then cheerfully whooping, "Three for one, Man-Mountain!"

Examining the hand still waving before his face and idly contemplating for a moment just biting it off at the wrist, Bates switched his gaze back to where the totally-clueless guy was enthusiastically bouncing up and down on his feet, and the biker then rumbled, "What the fuck you talkin' 'bout, asshole?"

"A three for one bet! We do three things that none of you or your-" the guy paused in his excited babble to lean past Bates to peer at the other subhuman bikers lined up behind their leader, all beadily examining their latest prey, to then pull his head back and continue, "-tribal subordinates can do, and then you all have to do one thing that we tell you to do!"

There was total silence in the bar then, as Bates just eyed the pleased man before him, like that guy actually thought he could talk or con his way out of whatever atrocity was going to happen. On the other hand, it'd be even more fun to see how far he and his old lady would go before they realized the hopelessness of their situation. A facial muscle on the biker's face quivered, his upper lip rising a fraction of an inch to show a flash of fang, as Bates then growled an amused agreement, "'Kay. Whaddya gonna do first? It fuckin' better not be somethin' you just pulled outta your ass."

Flopping back in his seat at the table, the one-eyed guy made a casual sweep of his arm that sent all of the empty whiskey glasses that had been resting on the tabletop flying away into the opposite direction from those around the table, to crash and shatter onto the floor. Bates didn't move a muscle at the noise, just watching the guy look up and grin at him, to then say, "I've been here a while, and I haven't even gotten a decent buzz on. So, here's the thing. You pick three full bottles of whatever booze that's in this place, and I'll drink them."

Bates lifted an eyebrow over hearing that. Actually, it was a pretty fair challenge, one that he and others of his pack had managed before lots of times. Still, there was a problem with that. "Naw, I ain't gonna spend a coupla hours watchin' you drink 'em, even if you can-"

"Oh, I'll drain them all in a minute or so each. Five minutes, tops, for all three."

Five minutes? What the hell did that guy think Bates was going to use in the bet, that pissy French bottled water, Per-something or other? Uh-huh, no fuckin' way. An evil light began to gleam in the biker's eyes, as he turned his head to rumble, "Joey, find three bottles of the special stuff, and then get your ass up here with 'em."

"Gotcha, Bates," Joey resignedly replied, knowing he didn't have a choice. The bartender moved along the counter, to then lean down and retrieve several bottles from under this before straightening up again, his hands full of glass containers. Joey then walked to the end of the bar counter, around it, and along to the table, carefully stepping past Bates, before depositing together onto the tabletop three bottles of alcohol that the one-eyed man regarded with evident interest, particularly the name on the labels: EVERCLEAR.

In a gloating tone, Bates informed the guy who'd made the bet, "That's 190 proof booze, asshole. Ain't nuttin' stronger than that, ever. So, you wanna quit now, so we can start havin' fun?" The biker leader started sadistically snickering, only to once more be interrupted.

"Actually, you can first check on all of those bottles, to make sure they're the real thing. I don't want you claiming I won by drinking something fake." The other guy calmly stared up into the startled features of the enormous criminal offender, whose face then became totally suspicious. Bates glared at Joey, whose own face turned pure white in his apprehension that he might ever be thought to do anything that would piss off the Raped Rhino Riders.

Somewhat mollified, Bates turned his attention back to the table, where he picked up one of the bottles of Everclear. Closely examining the bottle cap and its seal, the biker then twisted the top off, pitching away the discarded cap. He did the same for the other two bottles, and when they were all ready to be drunk, Bates gathered them up again, and one at a time, he dribbled a dollop of clear liquid onto the tabletop, leaving three separate small puddles. During this, Bates also stuck the tip of his left index finger into the stream of alcohol, bringing that digit up to his mouth to lick it, smacking his lips at the neutral taste and the sudden numbness of his tongue that proved it was the real thing. However, there was one final test to be made, and after putting down the last open bottle by the others, Bates dug into his jeans pocket, producing his Zippo lighter with its skull and crossbones design along the steel exterior. Flipping the lid open, the biker flicked the lighter into ignition, and then he held the produced flame over the three puddles of Everclear on the table, one after the other, which produced a triple result of each of those puddles at once bursting into a blue flame that gaily danced on the tabletop.

"Okay, it's all on the up-and-up," announced a satisfied Bates over his shoulder to his buddies crowding behind him to watch as he flicked off his Zippo and put it away, to then lean forward while casually pressing his left hand down three times in a row on top of the blazing puddles to put them out. He remained in his position of looming over the guy watching with fascination how Bates' left hand, still indifferently resting on the tabletop where it had snuffed out the last puddle, now had a thin stream of smoke curling upwards from between the fingers, bringing with it a smell of scorched meat.

Xander looked up right into the biker leader's broken-toothed sneer, for the one-eyed man to then confidently say, "I'll start when you back off. You want to time me?"

Straightening up and feeling a little taken aback at the absolute certainty in the other guy's tone, Bates hesitated, before glowering at him and shrugging, "Fuck it. It'll be fun to see how much you put away 'fore you drop dead and leave this fine mama with us for a little party." The ex-convict now vilely leered at Faith looking totally unimpressed at everything that had occurred at the table over the last few minutes.

"Yeah, whatever," muttered Xander in a equally blasé tone that perfectly matched his companion's indifferent expression at the announcement of her coming sexual assault. Still, there was an evident glint in his remaining eye, as that seated man now reached out to pick up the far left bottle of Everclear, to then lean back in his chair as he lifted the bottle to his lips, tilting the container straight up, as Xander now opened his mouth and relaxed his throat, letting the liquid inside pour down in a steady plunge, as he easily chugalugged the entire 12-ounce bottle of Everclear in less than a couple of seconds.

The only sound in the bar then was the soft *thud* of the bottom of the empty bottle hitting the tabletop, as Xander returned the container back by its fellows, to then grab the middle bottle of Everclear and repeat exactly the series of events that had drained the first bottle.

*Thud*

One more time.

*Thud*

After he had finished with the last bottle, the man with the eyepatch suddenly became still, looking unblinkingly straight ahead, as Bates and the entire biker club standing there now leaned forward in absolute fascination. Even in their violent lives, they didn't often see someone commit suicide before their very eyes, and drinking over a quart of liquor that was 95% grain alcohol inside a half-minute was virtually lethal for everybody on earth. Holding their breaths, the motorcycle gang waited for the guy to start entertaining them with his terminal convulsions, after which they'd start lining up by their status in the club in preparation for pulling a train on that hot woman there now intently examining her fingernails.

Instead, Xander Harris abruptly turned his head, to enthusiastically beam at the dumbfounded gang, as he whooped, "Now that was a rush! Fellas, we need to celebrate!" The man bounced to his feet from his chair, causing the entire group of bikers to scuttle backwards a few steps, to then stop and stare open-mouthed as that should-be-dead-now guy reached forward to grab the three empty bottles of Everclear liquor. Gripping the necks of two bottles in his left hand and the neck of the other bottle in his right hand, Xander now struck a pose, as Faith then groaned and put her hands over her eyes to shield herself from the coming ultimate badness, with her next resigned words from her lips directed at the bikers, "Jesus Christ in the mountains! You just hadda make him do his Tom Cruise imitation from that totally crappy movie, didn't you?"

Smirking at everyone in the bar, Xander Harris now started to expertly juggle the three bottles, passionately humming the entire soundtrack from 'Cocktail', as the bottles spun, rose, and fell in his nimble-fingered hands.


	3. Chapter 3

Deeply digging a hairy finger into an equally hairy ear, Bates tried to rid himself of the last few notes of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" that were still bouncing around in his brain. Pulling out his finger with an audible 'pop!', the leader of the outlaw motorcycle club then glowered around the saloon. The guy, who'd finally discarded the empty Everclear bottles he'd been juggling, to instead start tapping out a drum solo with his fingers on the tabletop as his finale, was once more seated at his chair and giving Bates a true shit-eating grin that wasn't doing a thing for the biker's fragile temper.

*Fucker must be some kinda freak, got a third kidney or somethin' else, whatever keeps him alive after downin' that load of booze. I sure as hell ain't tryin' it, but maybe….* Trailing off in his mind, Bates now consideringly examined his followers, trying to decide if any of those scumbags might be more successful, and if not, which of them would be the least missed. Their leader didn't make the slightest secret of what he was doing, which was why all of the other bikers were now glaring at him, their body language also clearly expressing: "NO fuckin' way!"

These delightful minions were quite happy to follow Skullripper around during his usual leadership of offending the regular citizenry; doing the occasional rampage of looting, plundering, and ravaging; and giving anybody who looked the slightest bit crosswise at them a good ass-kicking. However, they each preferred staying alive to do all of that, and nobody else wearing the colors of their club had the slightest goddamn intention of swallowing enough ultra-high-octane booze that would have allowed a drag racer set track records. It wasn't worth dying over, as would most certainly happen, just like playing Russian roulette with a revolver having all six chambers loaded with bullets. Bates fuckin' well better not push it.

Despite his brutish appearance, which perfectly matched his usual behavior, the leader of the club wasn't stupid, understanding well enough the military adage, "Never give an order you know will be disobeyed." Bates instead sent towards his followers a really scornful look, as deserved by those who dared to call themselves bikers but still wouldn't show off their machismo by doing something both extremely idiotic and having a clear likelihood of being fatal. All the rest of the motorcycle gang simply stared back at Bates, each sharing the same identical expression of, "Yeah, so fuckin' what?"

Finally having had enough, Bates switched his glower at the pair still sitting at their table, with the woman now appearing totally bored, and the guy actually giving him a sympathetic look! Feeling his temples beginning to throb, the biker leader snarled at the one-eyed man, "Okay, you win that one! Now, you fuckin' well better come up with somethin' else for you to do, that we can do too, or I'm gonna call off the bet and THEN we start bein' pure mean and nasty!" Bates' developing headache lessened, as he felt the unspoken agreement of his bikers behind him, who were all starting to get a bit impatient for their evening's atrocity.

Xander Harris thoughtfully considered that depraved statement, and then the man brightly offered to the bikers, "Well, how about something with serious potential for bloodshed, mutilation, and the other good things of life?"

There was a disbelieving silence in the bar for a few moments, until Bates managed to regain his voice, to hollowly deliver, "Huh?"

Beaming at the flabbergasted bikers, the one-eyed man now lifted up his hands, to flip them over, keeping the palms flattened and the fingers pointing right at the woman by him, in the unctuous presentation by a truly sleazy game show host or a reduced-to-kids'-parties stage magician, as Xander now intoned in a plummy voice, "Gentlemen, I present to you the lovely Faith, who shall be my gorgeous assistant in our next production. Lovely Faith, will you begin?"

Rolling her eyes in utter exasperation, the woman now sullenly straightened up from her chair on Xander's right side, all while muttering under her breath at the smirking man with the eyepatch, "You call me that one more time, I'll kick your ass higher than the space shuttle."

Plastering a look of mock alarm on his face, Xander called out after Faith stomping her way over to the bikers, "It seems that my exquisite helper is in a bit of a mood tonight, gentlemen. I entreat you, treat her with the utmost courtesy, as she completes her appointed task."

Bates looked down at the beautiful woman who had stopped before him, her upper torso at the level of his solar plexus, as she tilted back her head to give him a withering glance, accompanied by an equally disparaging comment, "Gimme yer knife, an' hurry it up, big guy."

The biker blinked, and he also heard the indrawn breaths of his followers at the woman's rudeness. Knowing that he had to show everyone at once that nobody could get away with dissing him, but still in a way that would also keep things going, because Bates was actually a little curious about whatever was going to happen next, the man-monster's brain worked furiously, until he came up with an actual plan.

In a blur of action, Bates drew his gigantic bowie knife from its belt holster, and then he slammed it down point-first onto the bar counter next to him, sinking the blade an inch deep into the wood (further along the bar, Joey cringed at the damage done to his property, and that bartender made a note to himself to get more wood sealant at the local hardware store). Ignoring the cowed owner's flinch, to instead glory in the snickers of his buddies, Bates let go of his weapon and he leered at the woman now staring at the knife gently vibrating as it stood straight up from the bar counter. "There ya go, honey. Ya want it, ya take it, and after we're all done, I'm gonna show ya somethin' else that matches it in size and the damage it can do."

Keeping her face blank as the entire bar now rang to the bikers' raucous guffaws, the woman took a step past Bates, to now stand right in front of where the knife was embedded in the bar counter. Patiently waiting until the malicious laughter died down and she was sure that everyone was paying attention to her gazing at the knife, Faith now said, "Ohhhhh, it's soooooo big and soooooo hard, and it makes me feel soooooo horny."

Every word of that woman's offhand drawl was delivered in an absolutely deadpan monotone, as far from female sexiness as it was possible to get, at the same erotic level of a sixty-year-old Bengali grandmother conveying from her Mumbai office building's cubicle that consumer service's stereo assembly instructions.

Unable to believe his ears, Bates would've ordinarily gone berserk in the next couple of seconds, until something truly fantastic now occurred to prevent this. Casually reaching out with her right hand, Faith gripped the handle of the knife, her fingers unable to reach all the way around, and then she smoothly pulled the mammoth weapon free out of the bar counter in one easy tug, all while showing the same lack of effort as that exerted when yanking a single Kleenex tissue out of its paper box.


	4. Chapter 4

Still nonchalantly holding the knife, Faith now turned and headed back towards their table to a pleased Xander, whose grin only grew wider at seeing all of the bikers gaping after the woman who'd just done the impossible. When she reached her destination, Faith spun around and then she hopped sideways onto the table at the one-eyed man's left side, the woman's butt in her leather pants now perched on the piece of dingy furniture, her legs now freely swinging in the air several inches above the floor, with both Xander and Faith again facing the bar counter and the still-speechless bikers.

Xander, on the other hand, was more than happy enough to hold forth once more in his booming, kindly-give-me-your-vote-people politician's voice, "Gentlemen, I presume that you've seen the movie 'Aliens'? That sci-fi thriller with Sigourney Weaver and the rest of the gang on a planet crawling with monsters from outer space and being fought by futuristic Marines? Well, you must remember the start of the film inside the spaceship when everyone's eating and the robot agrees to play a game with a knife with the big-mouthed guy named Hudson, who later gets munched on by the Aliens. Yes, sir, I see you understand now. The lovely Faith here-"

THUNK!

After plunging her new knife point-first onto the tabletop, an extremely fed-up woman now showed every one of her sharp teeth in a truly evil grin, purring, "The lovely Faith ain't here no more. She got bored 'bout the bullshit, so she took a break and sent over someone else in her place, a lady known as the Psycho Bitch From Hell." There was now a slightly crazed gleam in Faith's eyes that made every biker there simultaneously scoot back a fraction, as they all realized the absolute truth of what that woman had just said. Mainly since Faith was now idly running the tip of her index finger up and down along the face of the knife, in a gentle caress of the blade.

When she'd judged things had gone far enough, Faith said in a voice that now had an actual cackle in it, "Awright, Xan, put 'er there."

A growing look of alarm on his features, the one-eyed man reluctantly slid his palm-down left hand forward, until the flap of skin at the gap between his thumb and index finger was nearly touching the edge of the embedded bowie knife. Nodding with grim satisfaction, Faith coolly informed the rapt bikers, "'Kay, If ya 'member that movie, ya know the drill. I'm gonna see if I can do what that guy did, stab with this knife a coupla times as fast as I can between his fingers, see if I can get away with not making this dumbass here lose a finger or two."

Perking up over hearing that delightful prospect, the motorcycle club now stared at the man at the table slowly closing his remaining eye in horror at what he'd just heard. Sadistic smiles then began to appear on the bikers' faces, with the widest of these gloating grins making itself evident on Bates' battered features. Particularly when Faith began to muse, as if to herself, "'Course, it wouldn't be any kind of proper bar bet if it was too easy. So….I'm gonna do it with my left hand, and not lookin'."

Xander's closed eye now popped open in shock, as the man began to sputter, "Don't you damn well dare-!"

"Aw, shaddup! Yer gonna be hurtin' my feelin's any second now, actin' like ya don't trust the lovely Faith, ya high-school dweeb." Smirking, the woman then twisted her body to turn around while still sitting on the tabletop, so that the left side of her body was now on Xander's left and she had her back to the bikers. As Faith put her fingers around the hilt of the knife, she turned her head to call over her shoulder to the eager bikers, "'Kay, ya can see what's gonna happen next, and ya don't need to get closer, what with the blood spray and flyin' fingers."

Still keeping her head in its position of looking away from the man clearly awaiting with dread for whatever was to come, Faith curled her left fingers around the knife hilt, took a deep breath, and in the next moment, she jerked the knife free, lifted it up a couple of inches, to then rapidly stab it down again, blindly repeating that course of action several more times, all to the accompaniment of a 'thok!' sound whenever the point of the knife buried itself into its target.

The last 'thok!' slowly died away in the otherwise silent bar, as everyone there, including a wary Faith turning her head to look at what she'd done, now stared at where the woman was still gripping the knife currently embedded a fraction of an inch from the outside edge of Xander's left pinky.

As the breaths of the watching bikers whooshed from their lungs, in a mixture of a grumble of protest over missing seeing something go bloodily wrong and an actual sigh of admiration at watching someone get away with it, Faith was able to look directly into Xander's face without being seen by the motorcycle club behind her, and the woman now allowed herself a merry grin and a significant wink of her right eye at the man. Who himself gave no reaction whatever to Faith's odd actions that might have been caught by the bikers still gazing at the pair.

Instead, everyone there now heard the woman loudly announce, "Hey, that wasn't so hard. Think I'll do it again, only this time, I'll make it more interestin'." Their attention caught by this, the bikers now watched yet another incredible event of this extremely weird night in the bar.

Her face intent, Faith once more pulled the bowie knife free of the tabletop with her left hand, and she immediately jabbed it back down at her specific target. Except, unlike the last time, this wasn't between Xander's fingers, but at another location, and it didn't sound like a 'thok!' Rather, it was a deeper 'thunk!' More importantly, instead of the quick flash of the knife blade that the bikers had eagerly followed before, the weapon now moved too fast to be seen. Faster than humanly possible, in fact, as Faith pounded away, with wood chips and splinters spraying into the air, and the entire table starting to shudder and shake.

After a few seconds of a gaping biker gang watching in utter disbelief, these rejects from society heard a deep 'CRUNCH!', as the bowie knife in Faith's hand finally came to a stop for a moment, with the blade punched entirely through the wood surface of the table, until the woman could next do what she wanted. A quick, sideways slash by her hand holding the knife finished the job, as was demonstrated by the muffled clatter of an object dropping from the bottom of the table onto the stained linoleum floor below this piece of furniture.

Still with the knife in her hand as she jumped off the table to land upon her feet in front of this, Faith then used her right leg to reach under the table with her foot and give the result of her labors a good kick that sent this object skittering down the floor of the entire bar, nearly to the front door and passing along in its journey just a couple of inches from the toes of the bikers' boots, all who stared in shock at what slid by them. Including Joey, from his position furthest down the bar counter, who leaned over this to also examine with bulging eyes at what had come to a stop there on the floor.

It was a wooden, life-sized, masculine hand, perfectly carved from the edges of the wrists to the ends of the fingertips, down to the faintest swelling of the knuckles, as if someone had traced that part of their body with a pencil onto a tabletop and next sawed this outline free from its cellulose prison, to then take that object home and present it to their parents as their wood shop final exam.

The biker gang slowly turned their heads in unison to once more examine the pair their leader had made a bar bet with, to see Faith standing there, fists on hips (and the bowie knife still in her left hand), smirking at them all, and an equally insolent grin on Xander's face, as that man in his chair now lifted his totally unharmed left hand off the table now having a hand-shaped hole in it, where he'd moved it to the side to allow Faith to finish slicing through that piece of furniture to produce her object d'art, to casually blow away a few stray wood fragments clinging to his hand, and then he mockingly wiggled his intact fingers at the bikers.

Just before any of the Raped Rhino Riders could react to this taunt, Faith now stalked forward, past Bates swiveling to warily keep an eye on her and the knife she was carrying, right up to the point when that woman lifted her left hand and then she smoothly plunged the weapon two inches deep into the bar counter, causing the sound of a 'THUNK!' to echo throughout the entire saloon. Sending a sneer towards where Joey was grimacing at yet another necessary repair to his place and then ignoring the owner, Faith turned to look up at Bates.

"'Kay, ya saw what we done. Now, either two of ya do it too, or ya admit ya can't, and we win the second bet." Faith finished her calm statement by then walking away from the biker leader, whose face was beginning to turn purple with rage, as Bates stared after that damn woman who'd done the impossible. There was no fuckin' way he or any of his buddies could match that, not without it ending up with somebody needing a tourniquet or a coffin. As he brooded over that, Bates was startled at seeing Faith abruptly stop on her walk back to the table with Xander, to then slowly turn around, and flash everyone a wicked grin that made the biker leader's heart suddenly sink.

"Ya know," Faith said thoughtfully to nobody in particular. "I think we could stretch a point if ya tried anyway to win that bet. None of ya hasta use the knife to cut out on that table someone else's hand, 'cuz I'll do it."

Her grin then shifted from merely wicked into actual malevolence as the woman hissed at all of the bikers, "Yep, I'll chop out whatever part of yerself that yer willin' to risk losin'. If ya really wanna give me a challenge, well, all ya haveta do is step right up ta the table, drop yer trou, and lay right on it what manhood ya got. Haveta admit, it'll be fuckin' hard ta do alla the fine work ta carve out somethin' the size and shape of an earthworm, but if yer really game, I'll start sharpenin' the knife and gettin' ready to work on such decent, sportin' fellas like ya."


	5. Chapter 5

Skullripper Bates thought longingly of how the remaining eye would feel, popping like a grape in his squeezing fingers, as during his dying moments a certain pain in the ass heard the terrified screams of a woman making her unwelcome acquaintance with a dozen bikers. Good times, for sure, except that Bates still had to get on with the third bet, and frankly, he wasn't all that confident of victory. Those weirdos were just too smug, sitting there at their table, and both interestedly regarding the massive man giving them a very nasty look.

The odd thing was that Bates didn't even think about disregarding the bet and starting right away with the old ultra-violence. Especially since that biker certainly didn't have any morals, ethics, and principles. In the past, Skullripper had stolen Gideon Bibles from motels to use these as toilet paper for his daily dumps, as a teenager he'd cheerfully sold his mother into white slavery at the worse whorehouse in Tijuana that had put on stage shows consisting of their female captive and assorted barnyard animals, and lastly, whenever the vile man had been served with a slice of apple pie in a diner, he had the repulsive habit of slathering up to an entire bottle of ketchup over that innocent dessert. Nope, Lenny Bates was absolutely proud of being part of the scum of the earth.

However, even the worse humans alive have a code, and for bikers, their unwritten rules include a simple diktat: You Do Not Welsh On Bar Bets. If only because anybody acquiring a reputation of someone who did that would soon enough be shunned by every other biker, being reduced to lighting their own farts for amusement, and never again invited along on the weekly blitzkrieg into the territory of the neighboring outlaw motorcycle club, those Suzuki-riding, candy-ass, sons of bitches.

Finally getting down to business, the biker leader now snarled at two people he was really starting to dislike, "Okay, let's get it fuckin' over with. Spill it, asshole. Whaddya gonna do now that we gotta copy?"

The guy sitting at the table didn't seem to be all that impressed at the very displeased tone of the head of the RRR club. Keeping his face calm as he stood up from his chair, Xander looked right at a glowering Bates and replied, "Oh, I'll do something. But, all you have to do to win the bet is to NOT do something."

"Huh?" was bewilderedly chorused by Bates and also several of his followers.

"Yup," nodded the one-eyed man. "I'll bet right here and now, that I can do something so disgusting, perverse, and revolting that at least one of you will puke your guts out. If all of you can keep from doing that, you win, and then you get to do whatever you want."

There was dead silence in the bar for several moments, which was ended by something that neither Xander nor Faith had expected.

Laughter.

Every single one of the bikers, from Bates himself to the lowest guy on the club hierarchy, started to loudly guffaw, and then this developed into actual deep belly-laughs for them all that went on long and hard enough for the amused men to start holding onto each other to keep from collapsing to the floor in their mirth. What made this strange turn of events even more peculiar was that down along the bar counter, Joey was also snickering to himself, the first time since the bikers had entered his saloon that the man had showed the slightest sign of hilarity.

The puzzled look traded between Faith and Xander was interrupted by Bates lurching over to their table, to stand in front of this piece of furniture while the biker wiped away happy tears from his face, and then the man managed to choke out, "Ya don't know much about us, right?"

Of the pair, it was Faith who managed to speak first, warily asking, "What the hell are ya talkin' 'bout?"

Really enjoying himself for the first time tonight, Bates jerked a thumb at his massive chest, to proudly inform his audience, "It's like this. To become one a' us, a guy hasta go through initiation. We make damn sure they really wanna join, by havin' 'em do three things. First, to make sure they're tough enough, we beat the livin' crap outta 'em. Second, to see if their balls clang when they walk, we tell 'em they gotta do somethin' totally insane, like goin' for a pizza in the middle of a hurricane. Last of all, if they survive the first two things, they haveta show they got the guts to be a Rider. An' the only way to finish the job of gettin' our colors is to do exactly what's on 'em."

At those last words, Bates and every other biker now turned around, presenting to a dumbfounded Xander and Faith a dozen identical images on the backs of their leather jackets of a truly unbelievable act being committed upon a very large African horned herbivore that was not enjoying this at ALL.

After spending a few moments appreciating the speechless silence coming from behind them, Bates and his buddies turned around, with the their boss then folding his arms across his chest and bestowing a lupine grin upon these shaken people. The leader of the pack now rumbled, "Okay, then. Let's see what ya got, that'll make us toss our cookies, by guys who seen and done a helluva lot worse than anythin' a pissant like ya can come up with."

Xander blinked, and then a steely glint grew in his remaining eye. Yeah, those….people waiting for him to perform were far beyond in degeneracy than he'd previously thought possible, but he was still confident that at least ONE of those lowlifes would be unsettled enough to bring up their lunch. Or dinner. Or whatever they'd just eaten in the last couple of hours. Because what Xander Harris was about to do was something that would strike to the very core of every single human that existed.

Stepping forward, Xander left behind the table where a concerned Faith still in her chair watched him leave, brushing past an amused Bates turning to see the other guy walk down the line of bikers leaning against the bar counter and examining the one-eyed man with sadistic interest.

This didn't include Joey at the end of the bar counter, who worriedly backed up when Xander stopped there, with the bartender then feeling a little bit better over being ignored by the other man, who was instead looking at a couple of things being displayed on the counter. When Xander reached out with his hands, everyone else at once realized what the man with the eyepatch was actually interested in, resulting in their attention changing into honest bewilderment.

Except for Faith, still at her table in the corner. Unnoticed by all there, she'd averted her eyes, fixedly staring off into the distance where she couldn't possibly see whatever would happen next. Once had been more than enough, thank you.

On the other hand, Bates, his buddies, and Joey were all gaping in astonishment at Xander calmly taking off the lid of a glass gallon jar resting on top of the bar counter and filled with a cloudy liquid that contained several objects bobbing away inside the jar. Intent upon his task, Xander now plunged his right arm into the container, and after a few grabs, he managed to get a grip on one of the slippery things, to then triumphantly extract his filled hand from the jar. Stepping away from the bar counter while shaking his damp hand to get rid of the sulfur-smelling drops of liquid clinging to his fingers, Xander then faced the staring bikers, and the deadpan man held up his hand to show them what he'd taken out of the jar, now resting on his palm.

It was a hard-boiled egg, identical to all those other pickled unborn chickens in their brine-filled jars that have a place of honor in every lower-class pub, tavern, saloon, and drinking hole around the whole country, despite the fact that nobody is ever seen eating one of those unwholesome examples of bar food.

As the bikers continued to stare at the egg, an unspoken question arising in their minds of, "What the hell…?", Xander kept holding up this pungent, grayish-white oval, and in the next moment, he brought up his left hand, right to that side of his head, his fingers of that hand now digging under the leather strap of his eyepatch, to then yank off this protective covering and allow his hand holding this to fall back down to his side. Xander calmly kept his face forward, allowing every biker there a good, long look at the scarred crater in his skull that had once contained his left eye, until the former Sunnydale resident felt the moment was right.

Without a single muscle moving on his features, Xander now once more gripped the egg, and in one smooth sweep of his right arm towards his face, the man thrust the entire egg deep into his empty eye socket, accompanied by a bowel-loosening sound of, "Squiiiiish!"

Being the closest one there watching Xander do this, Joey immediately turned his head and puked over the floor behind the counter. The rest of the bikers, Bates included, had their faces turn white, and their mouths clapped shut below widened eyes, clearly fighting their own urge to upchuck at seeing that unexpected show of perversity. They seemed to be successful at this, Xander noticed, which wouldn't do at all. So, it was time for the pièce de résistance.

Stepping over to the counter once more, as a gagging Joey recoiled away from Xander, that California native now picked up something from a tray on top of the bar counter. This tray held plastic spoons, stirrers, and other minor utensils for drinks. Which included a certain beverage known as a mai tai cocktail.

Xander now held up a tiny, ultra-cheap, paper cocktail umbrella with a garishly-purple canopy, waiting patiently until all the bikers there still fighting down their nausea over having to look at the man with the egg actually IN his face, like the world's biggest and most obscene pimple, had time to realize exactly what the guy was holding. Then, Xander flipped the umbrella over to grip the knob at the top of the umbrella, holding the toothpick stem vertically, until the man casually brought up his right hand to his missing left eye, and plunged the umbrella toothpick right into the egg, as deep as it would go. As he took his hand away, Xander suddenly smirked at all of the bikers, causing the umbrella canopy to twitch slightly in its embedded position in his eye-socket.

Skullripper Bates and every other Raped Rhino Rider promptly leaned over the floor and performed a synchronized mass projectile vomiting.


	6. Chapter 6

The entire saloon reeked of Lysol disinfectant, with Bates barely able to smell the whiskey in the shot glass right under his nose. As the biker leader threw back his drink, shuddering at the fiery liquid running down his throat to land with an explosive thud into his stomach, Bates once more savored the comfortable numbness of cheap booze spreading throughout his body. He disregarded the other bikers on his right, all bellied up to the bar counter and putting down their own drinks as fast as they could, and the man grimly poured another shot from the bottle in front of him, while also ignoring Joey behind the counter pushing to the back of the saloon his rolling bucket containing the mop the owner had just used to clean the floor.

Behind Bates, someone politely cleared their throat.

*Oh, shit.*

Reluctantly turning around, his filled glass still in his hand, while noting his biker buddies (those pricks) were all determinedly staring straight ahead and hunching their shoulders in clear indication it was up to him to deal with whatever happened next, Bates finally faced the man standing in front of him. Despite himself, the leader of the Raped Rhino Riders couldn't keep his glance from nervously flickering across the other man's face, to then breathe a mental sigh of relief at seeing once more only a leather eyepatch covering a certain part of that person's features.

Bates silently thanked his lucky stars that the one-eyed man had finally gotten rid of that goddamn egg during the other's recent visit to the men's room. His relief at that was suddenly dispelled by a truly horrible thought, *What'd he DO with it?*, that made the biker's stomach abruptly lurch in warning that he was about to vomit again, until Bates quickly drained the whiskey shot in his hand, which thankfully pummeled that part of his body into drunken submission.

Really wanting this whole stupid night to be over, the gigantic man now glowered at the freak patiently standing there, and then he snarled, "Okay, you want me to say the goddamn words? Fine! You won, all three of the bets, and now you can haul ass! The door's over there, so just fuck off, the both of you! Nobody's gonna lay a single finger on either one of you - holy Mother of God, we don't even wanna be around you no more! Just fuckin' beat it, asshole!"

Instead of the understandable relief that should have immediately appeared on his face over hearing that reluctant admission of defeat and grudging permission to leave, Xander now simply stared in open astonishment at the grumpy biker, exclaiming, "What for? We could have left anytime we wanted, but that wasn't the whole point of the bet! No, you have to do something we want!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Bates saw the entire line of his followers flinch at those appalling words, and while keeping his body facing the guy nodding to himself in smug satisfaction, the boss biker threw his right arm in a backwards sweep, unerringly grabbing without looking the whiskey bottle he'd been drinking from, to at once lift this container to his lips and swallow four fingers of booze in a single gulp. Slamming the empty bottle back onto the bar counter, Lenny "Skullripper" Bates gritted out, "What. Do. You. Want?"

A few minutes later, in the cleared area at the center of the saloon, created by pushing the tables and chairs previously there out of the way, Xander beamed at those in front of him, and as he poked upwards in the air both straight index fingers at head level in a clear signal for attention, the man now chortled, "Okay, everyone, to the beat! Ah-one, Ah-two!"

After saying that, Xander's fingers, having made two vertical sweeps straight up and down, as if conducting an orchestra, now pointed directly at Bates and every other biker sullenly standing in the cleared area and staring fixedly straight ahead, as all of the mouths belonging to the outlaw motorcycle club now opened. Producing sounds previously heard only by elephant proctologists, the bikers started singing, "_I'm a little teapot, short and stout._"

Grinning wildly, Xander started waving his hands in time with the beat, bouncing up and down on his feet, as the bikers continued, "_Here is my handle._" Their features expressionless, the horrifically singing men now simultaneously put their left hands on their hips.

Seated at her table, Faith was keeping her own face pressed down onto the surface of that piece of furniture, arms wrapped around her head in a desperate attempt to protect her Slayer hearing and a bit of the woman's sanity.

"_Here is my spout,_" chorused the bikers, as they all then held their right arms out straight at shoulder height. Fortunately nobody poked any of the other bikers, or there surely would've been murder committed among themselves straightaway.

Behind his bar, Joey slowly sank down as his legs gave way, until his unbelieving eyes were peeking over the counter at what he was seeing and hearing, with the last thing performing something the bartender had never thought possible, as unknowingly to the amazed man, the appalling sounds started exterminating every last cockroach in the place.

Knowing they were almost finished with their humiliation, the bikers rushed out the next sentence, "_When I get all steamed up, hear me shout,_" bellowing this into Xander's joyous expression as that man hopped around with glee.

The children's song finally ended with the last words and actions of, "_Tip me over and pour me out_!" as every biker from Bates down then leaned over to the right, freezing into immobility for a few moments, unblinkingly watching as Xander now calmed down a bit in front of them, coming to a halt while rapidly clapping his hands and whooping, "OH, YEAH! That was beautiful, guys!"

Sniffling and pretending to wipe away a mock tear from his right eye, Xander now interestedly regarded how the bikers slowly straightened up, drifted together into a mob of several thousands pounds of enraged humanity, and started their slow, deliberate advance towards him, with Bates in the fore, that biker's basketball-sized fists clenched so hard his knuckles were pure white, and his eyes glowing with homicidal intent.

There was a puff of displaced air at Xander's left side, but he didn't bother to turn his head to look, knowing that Faith had just materialized there, with the Slayer ready to kick ass and take names the instant the first punch was thrown. Bates didn't shift his gaze the slightest either, keeping his watch upon the man in front of him, as the biker now came to a halt, with the two men nearly chest-to-chest. Well, make that nose-to-chest for Xander, who then looked up into a biker leader's glaring face.

Irately rumbling his words so deeply that Xander felt the air in his lungs shiver, Bates inquired, "Bet's over, right?"

"Yup," cheerfully answered Xander.

"Good," hissed Bates, managing that feat even with a word that didn't possess a single sibilant.

There was now a dead silence in the room, while all there awaited the next thing to happen that would surely begin the carnage. Except what did occur was something else entirely. His fists relaxing into hands dangling at his sides, Bates allowed a weary expression to cross his face, as that man sighed, "Fuck this shit. Me and my buddies are gonna take off, go home to our old ladies, fall in bed, and just forget this whole fuckin' night ever happened. Right, guys?"

A relieved chorus coming from the other bikers of, "Yeah!" "Fuckin' A!" "Damn straight, bro!" was disbelievingly heard by both Xander and Faith, who then watched Bates carefully turn around so as not to brush against the one-eyed man, to then amble away down the bar and through the front door without a single glance back at the bar, followed by all the other bikers doing the same. The last member of the Raped Rhino Riders club even gently closed the front door behind himself, quite civilly.

Standing there in wonder, Faith and Xander now heard the sound of motorcycle engines begin, and then fade away into the distance. Previously, when the biker club had arrived at the saloon, it had been to the accompaniment of a savage, animalistic roar of power, a bellowing cry of a mechanical Wild Hunt, carrying their bestial masters on missions of ruin and desolation.

However, at this exact moment, when Bates and his buddies drove off from their defeat, it instead sounded particularly meek and docile, almost if the Wild Hunt had been….neutered.


	7. Chapter 7

Several minutes later, at the table where she was waiting for Xander to come back from his sudden urge to again visit the saloon's facilities, most of Faith's attention was concentrated on leaning back on the rear two legs of her seat, balancing on these parts of her chair tilting away from the table. Still, she was a Slayer, so she snatched out of the air the object tossed in her direction without even looking at it, or needing to shift the slightest in her precarious position, until she finally glanced at what she now had in her hand. It was a key-ring with numerous examples of these door and lock openers clinking against each other, as Faith then bemusedly eyed that person she'd sensed coming near who'd just given her this.

Blinking in momentarily astonishment at that woman's accurate flash of inhuman speed, Joey managed to get back into his irritated mood, as the man now crankily informed Faith, "Lock up when you leave, or do whatever the hell you want! This place is yours now, because Bates and his gang will damn well remember soon enough that I was here and saw everything they did! That means I've gotta leave town, put all my stuff in my car, and head like a bat outta hell as far away as I can get!" The bartender and former owner of Joey's now furiously stomped off into the back of the saloon, with Faith right after that hearing the rear door slam shut.

Her eyebrows quizzically rising, Faith started twirling the key-ring around her index finger, giving a quiet "Huh" over the latest events. The woman started wondering if she should feel guilty about what had happened, that guy losing his business and livelihood, until Faith remembered Joey's practiced cowardice when the bikers had shown up, so the Slayer finally just shrugged and kept on playing with the keys. This continued even when Faith heard familiar footsteps approaching her from behind.

Sure enough, Xander pulled out his own chair and dropped into this, to then slump forward his torso, lying his upper body flat on the surface of the table he was sharing with Faith. Xander then crossed his arms, lifting his chin to perch that part of his body onto those limbs. The left, blind side of his face that was in Faith's view was now drawn and tired, as the former Sunnydale native blankly stared ahead.

*Looks like he's crashin'. 'Bout damn time.* Opening her mouth to start expressing her own irritation about tonight's events, Faith gazed again at the exhausted features of the man she'd agreed to support, and she felt a flicker of compassion. The Slayer decided to gradually get around to her concerns, and she instead idly tossed off to the man, "Yo, boytoy, since I didn't hear no screams comin' from the john, I guess Red's booze-losin' spell still works okay, not makin' anythin' 'sides the alcohol vanish outta whatever you drank tonight."

Still in his slumped position on the table, Xander didn't look over at Faith, just quietly grumbling, "Thanks ever so much for reminding me of that possibility, Faith. After all, Wils was in the middle of her phase of 'Whee! Let's use magic for everything!' back in Sunnydale when she remembered my birthday and decided it'd be a nice gift to cast a spell to make sure I wouldn't wind up like my boozehound parents."

Faith winced at the bitter tone that had suddenly appeared in Xander's voice, particularly when he continued in that same sour voice, "Of course, it wasn't until she actually finished that Willow figured it wouldn't be such a good idea to test her spell or even tell me what she did. Especially since soon after that, she went into her 'Whee! I'm a lesbian!' phase, and totally forgot about it."

Clearing her throat with some embarrassment, Faith risked a question, "She still can't do nothin' 'bout it?"

"During all the apologizing and crying afterwards, Willow admitted the spell was linked to the place where she cast it, the Magic Box, the pieces of which are now buried under several hundred feet of rock and water at Lake Sunnydale." Still keeping his chin perched on his arms, Xander now twisted his head around to sardonically peer at Faith with his right eye. "She still thinks I'm nuts for wanting it taken off, not understanding at all that maybe I'd like to get drunk once in a while."

Feeling her face heat up over hearing that, Faith looked down at what the fingers of her right hand were still gripping, and she fretfully began to twirl the key-ring again, until a curious voice interrupted this, "Hey, Faith, where'd you get those?"

"What?" A startled Slayer looked up into Xander's mildly interested features, to impulsively answer, "Oh, the usual thing, that yellow-bellied owner, he tossed 'em over just before he took off for good."

The left corner of Xander's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "Figures. Remind me when we're leaving to do the same thing we did before, dropping them in a mailbox in an envelope addressed to the local cops giving them the address and inviting them to have a look around. I'm sure they'll find lots of things to investigate, with maybe the possibility of nailing those biker assholes."

Faith cynically snorted, "It woulda been better to use a sawed-off shotgun and a coupla gallons of napalm on every one of 'em. Not that anybody woulda missed 'em, plus their victims woulda thanked us for it."

Xander resignedly shrugged, "They were as human as me, Faith, even though I'm not particularly happy about sharing the same species as those jerks. Unless you caught them red-handed or they started something, you know quite well they're off-limits to you." The man sighed, and then he said in a firm, concluding tone, "Well, whatever, it looks like we're done with the fun for this year."

Still feeling irked about that whole annoying Slayer thing of not being able to slaughter non-demonic people who really, really deserved it, Faith finally lost her temper, especially over what Xander had just said. "FUN?" she roared. Faith continued yelling at the shocked man, "Holy hell, boytoy, we've been doin' this for a coupla years now, and you still haven't come up with somethin' better to call it than fun?"

Straightening up to stare into the furious features of the woman glaring at him, a taken-aback Xander opened his mouth, and then shut that to put his startled thoughts in order. Slowly speaking, the man measured his words, "Faith, there's just no single word that can describe hilarious and gross and sweet and sad and pleased and disastrous and greedy and doomed and grateful and everything else to explain Anya. Like I told you, I….just couldn't come up with anything else to remember her the way she deserved, until I got really depressed on the day that should have been our wedding anniversary and set out to find a fight."

Faith rolled her eyes, clearly remembering, as she snapped, "Yeah, and I wuz the one that hadda spring ya from the hospital with yer broken ribs, missin' teeth, and the concussion, without havin' the Council and the other Scoobies findin' out!"

Xander allowed a derisive look to appear on his face, as he huffily pointed out, "You were more than willing to take advantage of it, when you blackmailed me into coming along with you on YOUR special days!"

The two of them at their table glared at each other for several moments, until they abruptly looked away, unexpectedly feeling a bit ashamed of themselves. Still staring off in different directions, both started their mumbled apologies at the same time, "Sorry, boytoy- Faith, I didn't mean it-," until they stopped and turned back their head to hold the other's gaze, identical wry grins appearing on these survivor's faces.

Xander managed to be the first to speak, in a contrite tone, "Look, Faith, I'm perfectly okay now with escorting you in our best clothes to those formal afternoon teas in those old-style hotels, but I have to tell you, it's kinda weird to me as my visits to scuzzy human bars to tease the natives must be to you. Didn't your first Watcher ever say _why _she took you to the Parker House in Boston in the first place?"

Faith sighed, allowing a bittersweet nostalgic expression to pass over her beautiful features. "Diana prob'ly woulda, if things hadn't gone to shit with that fucker Kakistos right after. Nope, when it was all over, she just asked me if I had a good time, and all I could think to say was 'Hell, yeah!' I gotta tell ya, it was a damn relief to swear again, since I hadda watch everythin' I said in that posh place, not wantin' to let her down. That also took my mind off the fact I was in a real pretty dress for the first time in years, my hair put up, and a ton of gunk on my face." The Slayer smiled sadly at an intently listening Xander. "Even with alla that, it was just….nice. Bein' with her, knowin' she was proud of me….well, I didn't have that much before, ever."

Xander now smiled back equally sadly at a woman who'd had an horrible early life, until she became a Slayer and then met someone who actually treated her with kindness and care. He softly spoke to his friend, "Remembrance, Faith. We do it to honor them, to keep them in our memories with what made them happy. I….don't want to forget Anya, Faith. No matter what happened back then, she'll always be part of me, so I head out on the day when we should've gotten married, to find the seediest human bar possible, and just basically go nuts. Like our lives together would've been, totally wacky and wild, but…with each other. And, I want to tell you, I'm glad you're with me when I do this." At the last, he reached out to gently pat Faith's hand resting upon the tabletop.

Faith looked down at this, hiding the sudden shine of tears in her eyes, until she finally managed to control herself, looking up once more into Xander's waiting face, as the Slayer whispered, "Yeah, ditto. I got your back, always, same as you do for me." Faith's mood suddenly improved, as shown by her happier voice when she went on, "'Bout that, I already got the reservations for this year's afternoon tea. We're gonna go for the ultimate: the Connaught in London." She grinned at Xander's startlement, chuckling, "Yer gonna be in full fig, lookin' both scrumptious and dangerous in yer Armani suit and that eyepatch."

"Sounds fine to me," Xander smilingly acknowledged. He beamed at Faith, his own spirits brightening, as he teased, "I'll be looking forward to your new dress, especially like all the other times you make it a surprise on that day and don't take me along on any shopping expedition to find this."

Faith mock-glowered at the snickering man across from her. "Hey, it's only once a year, and I get in the proper Slayer temper right before I go huntin': Stalk, pounce, kill, an' carry off to my lair."

"That was kinda why we always had to find new fast food places back in Sunnydale every time we ordered out, because Buffy pretty much acted exactly like that when the Chinese or pizza came to the library or her mom's house, ripping the food right from the delivery guys' hands, snarling and growling and basically freaking them out, so they never came back again. Still, it meant that at least half of the time, we never had to pay, due to those guys running away as fast as they could after that." Xander smirked at Faith's giggles over hearing a new Scooby Gang story, until the man's face suddenly cracked into a massive, jaw-stretching, yawn.

Getting up from her chair, Faith looked down kindly at the California native once more looking tired. "Ya take a few winks, Xan, and I'll call a cab so we can get outta here. 'Kay?"

"Sounds good," admitted Xander, again leaning his upper body onto the tabletop and tucking his head into his folded arms. "Wake me up when it gets here."

"Gotcha."

A couple of minutes later, with their ride lined up, Faith came back to their table and found her companion in a deep sleep. Xander didn't even twitch when the Slayer sank into her chair, despite ordinarily snoozing lightly during his usual dozing, a necessity in their dangerous lives. Faith abruptly once more felt tears in her eyes at this absolute trust casually shown by someone she'd hurt badly years ago. Impulsively reaching out with her right hand to stroke his hair, she froze with her fingers about to touch him, as Xander mumbled a couple of words in his sleep.

"Lovely Faith."

Now Faith Lehane actually allowed a few tears to roll down her cheeks, as she lightly caressed the top of his head, and whispered as softly as possible to a slumbering Xander Harris, "Yer still gonna wear that pink carnation on the lapel of yer suit when we walk into that place, us both lookin' fine and ready to chow down."


End file.
